25 Simple Steps to a More Perfect World

By: Hugh O'Neill

1. No more bathroom attendants. They're just creepy. And hell, no more charging money for stuff that used to be free. Now give us our little bag of peanuts, airlines.

2. Carpentry, plumbing, and electrical courses would be mandatory for all boys in middle school.

3. Scarlett Johansson would replace Jackson on the $20 bill.

4. Basketball players wouldn't be able to call a timeout as they're heading out of bounds. They'd need to be in total control. Come to think of it, timeouts would be banned entirely. Life doesn't have them.

5. All base runners would score on a ground-rule double.

6. All of the following would be tax deductible: TV sports packages; alcoholic beverages; mechanical timepieces; shoe shines; and all costs related to the pursuit of sex, up to and including Porsches.

7. Icing the kicker or free-throw shooter would be outlawed. Just play the damn game.

8. Caddies would be prohibited on the PGA Tour. No other athlete has a butler/shrink on the field with him. Conning out distances is a fundamental skill of the game; so is picking the correct club. We'd deep-six the 150-yard marker, too.

9. If you bathe your coach in Gatorade, you also forfeit the game.

10. Men would be permitted to admit uncertainty, and women would find this hot.

11. Movie reviewers would be forbidden to call a flick the funniest movie of the year until the following year.

12. Women would start with the climax of their stories, and then go back to fill in the details (if we ask).

13. If you setout to climb Mt. Hood wearing shorts and sandals, and then have to be rescued by 12 men, two helicopters, and a team of huskies, your marginal tax rate would be raised to 81 percent until you've repaid the cost of being an idiot.

14. All cable providers would carry a Salma Hayek channel.

15. Those little ketchup and mustard packets would be twice as big.

16. A 25-handicapper would not be allowed to pace off approach-shot yardage. (Just put the ball in the air, bucko.)

17. All gutters would self-clean.

18. Parents would strive to give their children self-reliance instead of self-esteem.

19. Singing "Happy Birthday" at the office (with or without cake) would result in immediate termination.

20. Every fifth year would be free of federal income taxes.

21. Volunteering to slather
sunscreen on women in the park would finally be seen for what it is:
community service in cancer prevention.

22. Dads would stop complaining that refs never call traveling.

23. Alternatively, refs would start to call traveling.

24. A 20-yard field goal would be worth 3 points, but a 50-yarder just 1. Try throwing the ball, coach!

25. Parent-teacher nights would come with nachos and tequila shooters.